Modern motorized vehicle seats have a wear surface of fabric, leather, or the like consisting of a plurality of panels of material sewn together in conventional construction. The sewn edges of the panels are hidden from view of the user of the seat, but the sewing process itself is accomplished by conventional commercial grade sewing machines which sew all of the seat cover parts together with the sewing taking place while the wear surface of the seat cover is in inverted condition. After sewing, the seat cover has front and back panels joined together along three sides with the fourth side open to slide over the frame. The sewn panels form a pocket-like structure. The seat cover as sewn must be inverted to get the wear surface to the exterior of the pocket formed in the sewing operation.
It is conventional to sew, adhesively bond, or otherwise secure foam rubber padding, etc. to the front panel of the seat cover prior to the time the front and back panels are sewn together. The padding is to provide comfort for the user of the seat. A problem is created by the fact that the padding is secured to the front panel of the seat cover, in that, the volume of the padding bulges into the pocket making a tight fit and making it physically difficult to invert the seat cover to operative position. Heretofore, in this industry the inversion has taken place by a hand operation which is time consuming, physically exhausting, an altogether labor intensive feature of the manufacturing process.
A review of product inverting apparatus has been made and U.S. Pat. No. 4,249,972 is illustrative. It shows apparatus for inverting inside-out girdles using two upstanding arms over which the girdle is threaded. A plate descends downward between two upstanding arms and pushes the closed end of the girdle downward between the two arms to invert the girdle structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,125,261 shows similar structure to that of the patent mentioned above except that the structure reciprocates in horizontal fashion rather than vertical fashion.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,739,910 an apparatus and method are shown for inverting a pair of training pants for children. It uses a cone-shaped structure over which the training pants are fitted and a probe which pushes within the cone-shaped structure from the narrowest end to invert the training pants as the probe pushes to the interior of the cone.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,310,207 shows apparatus for inverting a pillowcase which includes a couple of arms which project to the closed end of the pillowcase and then some mechanism grasps the collar at the open end and pulls it longitudinally toward the closed end.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,302 shows an apparatus for inverting hosiery which uses a piston and cylinder combination actuated by a foot peddle to assist in the inversion process.
As a result of the problem in the industry and the research performed in seeking a solution, it was concluded that new and original apparatus was required to accomplish the desired result.